Conor Hill
Professor Kenneth Cruz
CCJ 250 Criminology
10 October 2015
Paper #1
“A Vicious Cycle” is a short clip from a television show that was uploaded onto YouTube on January 8, 2014. The segment watched is the first of three that begins by profiling many families in the city of St. Louis who lost loved ones to homicide. The video connects to the audience pathos by proving that by losing a family member, the “wounds are deep” and “they may never heal”. These wounds of course are those on the families and on the community around them. These violent crimes that take place are destroying the lives of many people in the community.
The video tells us that St. Louis is one of the most dangerous cities in the world due to its crime rate, particularly
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Merton focuses on “discovering how some social structures exert a definite pressure upon certain people in the society to engage in ‘nonconformist conduct’” (Merton, 1938: 672). Merton states that there are two important elements of social and cultural structure: culture goals and institutional norms. He states that culturally defined goals, purposes, and interests are the reason why people make poor decisions in situations. The goals of the people are strictly based off of the strive for respect and their emotions in situations. “The social structure defines, regulates, and controls the acceptable modes of achieving these goals” (Merton, 1938: 673). Merton is telling us that based on social structure, people will do whatever it takes to achieve a goal. Tying back to the video, gangs in poorly equipped areas will use the deprived social structure to achieve their goal of respect on the streets. They will do whatever it takes to achieve their goal, constituting murder. According to Merton, the lack of the usual social or ethical standards in society is caused by its weakness: the contributing factors to violent crimes brought up in the clip. Also, Merton’s theory of social structure and anomie looks to clarify deviance. In this theory, circumstances in the social structure cause deviant conduct. An inequality of goals and their means of achievement is what cause deviant behavior. People do not have an equal chance to attain the goals. The low class does not have the same opportunities as the upper class. Anomie is when there is excessive emphasis on the goals of society, but no ways to accomplish them. In the video, there is an importance of financial stability but not everyone can be economically stable. This is the reason why people start to be deviant, including the contributing factors of violent
The film Tales of the Grim Sleeper ties into the topics we’ve discussed in sociology by covering topics such as race, class, drug usage, crime and justice and deviance. The film goes goes into detail concerning the story of the serial killer Lonnie Franklin and multiple topics come into view as the story progresses. Lonnie lived in a poverty ridden community with his wife and son. Lonnie and his wife were not very close and were never seen together. Lonnie was very close to his son Chris; Chris’ DNA is later used to convict his father and Chris will feel guilty three years after the conviction.
Chapter 2 Is it Really a Mean, Mean World? The news media has long followed the tradition “if it leads it bleeds,” so is the world truly filled with the propaganda of the violence and mayhem that they continue to disseminate every evening? Critical attention to how crime is reported in the evening news is necessary. Given the way in which the media represents these events heavily influences our understanding of crime in society (Pollack, Kubrin 1).
Consistently connecting these events is a cycle caused by emotional and physical violence. Violence breeds violence, and shame is why people resort to violence, and why violence will always
While this theory can be universal, it mostly applies to urban societies. Most people who live in these urban societies live in poverty and do not have the means to climb the social ladder. As a result they turn to crime.(Simons & Burt, 2011) This theory forces people to ignore the social norms within the society because they end up not caring about the appearance of the neighborhood or if they get in trouble with the law. Similar to social learning theory, people who commit crimes within a disorganized are not able to see how their actions can cause negative consequences.
Strain and Deviance: an empirical test of General Strain Theory of in a Philippine Public University LITERATURE REVIEW Theoretical Background During the past decades, various criminologists developed different theories in an attempt to explain the causes of crime within the society. In return they were successful, as of today it was adopted or accepted, indeed all of theories explain the root causes of crime. One of these theories is anomie or strain theory which originally argues that the lower class frustration to higher class causes crime (Merton, 1938) in attempt to explain why majority of the people who commits crime are lower class.
The media tends to cover only a small number of incidents, only after they become sensationalized. The tragedy becomes sensationalized after a prof of brutality such as video goes viral on social media. However, media doesn’t forget to report on youth of color as perpetrators of violence. Nevertheless, they don’t show that youth from ten to twenty four years old are the victims of murder by law enforcement, which is nineteen times more than non Hispanic White Americans (Silverman, p. 2). Other researches capture the deadly force of law enforcement and the lives taken by their hand.
Due to Bender’s behaviour and personality, he is often alienated by those around him. Merton’s strain theory of behaviour states that deviance is a product of society itself and the conditions that it lays down for each individual. Each society has a certain set of goals and a means of achieving it however when an individual is unable to achieve them, they may resort to deviance (Haskings-Winner, Collishaw, Kritzer & Warecki, 2011). Bender who is unable to meet society’s expectation subtly portrayed by the other students of being academically inclined, popular or athletic, feels the need to go against society because he would not fit in our the school regardless. Moreover, Bender’s household is a distinct factor in his deviant behaviour.
In the novel, "Long Way Down," the author, Jason Reynolds, delves into the life of a young black teenager, Will, who finds himself caught in the cycle of violence. Reynolds explores the cultural context surrounding inner-city communities and the impact of systemic violence on people and their communities. Set inside a single elevator ride, the novel explores the themes of grief, revenge, and the complex web of choices that shape one's life. With the use of complex ideas, he creates a great understanding of the Cycle of Violence in today’s society The cycle of violence is the major cultural issue in the United States. It is a repeated act of violence that is learned.
A serial killer’s violent rage may reflect the abuse and neglect endured in childhood. Their intense hatred cultivated in the early stages of childhood now will be directed at their unsuspecting victims. In The Killers Among Us, Stephen Egger claims that many case studies of mass and serial murderers discovered a reoccurring background of ”neglect and early years spent in extreme social and psychological deprivation” (Egger 29). Continually, Egger states that the most common aspect of the serial killer’s histories was the physical abuse and violent punishments inflicted on them as a child. As a result, their subconscious stores these traumatic memories and emotions, which later has a powerful result on their behaviors and emotional life
Ameena Matthews, Ricardo “Cobe” Williams, and Eddie Bocanegra display the courage to express agape love for their communities. People living in these distressed communities on the Southside of Chicago have the mentality that when they have a grievance with someone, that grievance justifies the violence they commit against another individual. During the documentary, someone mentioned that violence is an infectious disease that consumes people; the behavior is bad, not the people. Also, violence is seen as the only way to reclaim credibility; they rather face death instead of dishonor. However, violence interrupters encourage those who seek vengeance to find it in their hearts to forgive and empower them to have the courage to love.
Strain theory is a crime theory that was developed by Robert Merton, an American sociologist. According to Robert, strain can be defined as the discrepancies that result from the goals that are culturally defined in reference to the means that are institutionalized and available to meet the set goals. As proposed by Merton, there exists a typological deviance that is based on two criteria; an individual’s belief in how the goals should be attained and an individual’s adherence or motivation to cultural goals. According to the theory, certain stressors or strains are responsible in increasing the likelihood of crime activities around the world.
The social structure theory is the second theory that helps explain status offenses.
The term "anomie," in this regard, stands for the absence of social regulation (Siegel, & Welsh, 2014). American sociologist Robert Merton emphasized the faulty relationship between the goal of the individual or the group of individuals and the legal means by which it is possible to achieve the goals (Thompson & Bynum, 2016). Robert Merton divided the goals into two distinct categories: the goals defined by culture and the acceptable means. Materialistic goals, such as a search for financial success, fall into the former category, whereas the goals such as education fall into the former (Thompson & Bynum, 2016). The main argument made by Merton is that the goal of achieving success is shared by the majority of people, whereas the seeking opportunities to do this legally through the means of
The phenomena that Merton 's theory indicates towards can be successfully explained with the help of an example of how people achieve or strive to achieve economic success. For instance, in the U.S which has a capitalist system, everybody is motivated to attain financial profitability for a greater sense of positive identity. There are two legally approved ways of accomplishing this task, education and work. However, not everyone may have access to equal opportunities because of brokered access or discrimination on the basis of class, gender, race, sexuality etc. that is prevalent in most societies (Broidy & Agnew,1997).
Esbensin, Peterson, Taylor and Freng (2010) implies that “ young people who have committed serious violent offenses have the highest level of impulsive and risk-seeking tendencies.” Moreover, extreme violent criminal activity being performed in front of youth increases the risk of them performing acts of extreme violence themselves. Because youth see those acts as acceptable so committng those violent activities make youths to become ruthless. Smith and Green (2007) assert that violent activities becoming ruthless and the perpetrators even more ruthless.